Building past and future narratives to support collective water management
Les récits historiques et prospectifs : des mises en intrigue au service des acteurs de la gestion de l'eau
Résumé
While numerous methods and approaches have been developed to support the design and implementation of water management schemes, their effectiveness is still a matter of inquiry. We focus on two approaches which can be used in the context of water management: historical approaches and future studies. They both share the specificity of enabling the building of narratives. The features of narratives are interesting to enlighten water management issues, because they mix heterogeneous dimensions (technical, political, environmental, social horizontal ellipsis ) in a coherent framework, in line with the complexity of these issues. To analyze the specific role narratives can play in water management situations, we focus on three case studies of projects which have combined historical approaches and the building of future scenarios in the context of water management schemes involving river restoration issues. The narratives built during this project highlight the close interrelations between the ecological functioning of the water systems, technical management options, sociopolitical context and the diversity of attachments of users to the rivers. Historical narratives reconfigure the way the story of the river and its users is usually related, stressing that the current situation is not fixed and revealing the drivers of past and current changes. Future scenarios allow to explore a range of sociotechnical configurations, linking different technical options with socioeconomic situations and collective organizations, opening the range of possible futures. The different narratives, co-constructed with the water management actors, contribute to modifying their representations of the management situations and to fostering their commitment for water management issues. It can open a window of opportunity for ambitious environmental actions, providing the dynamics lasts in the mid-term. The new state of understanding, collectively shared, thanks to the building and diffusion of narratives, acknowledges the plurality of technical functioning of the rivers and of related attachments, which helps improving the quality of deliberative arenas in which water management issues are discussed.
De multiples démarches d'accompagnement se sont développées autour de l'élaboration et la mise en place de dispositifs de gestion de l'eau. Cet article contribue aux interrogations sur la portée et l'efficacité de ces démarches. Il s'intéresse plus particulièrement aux démarches historiques et prospectives, à travers leur spécificité commune : la capacité à construire des récits. Sur la base de trois études de cas, ayant combiné approches historique et prospective, il ressort que les récits construits permettent une opération de mise en intrigue entre des éléments hétérogènes : questions techniques liées à la gestion de l'eau, mais aussi dimensions politiques, sociales, sensibles, associées aux attachements des usagers. La co-construction de ces récits avec les acteurs de la gestion de l'eau contribue à des changements de représentations et à un intéressement aux enjeux de gestion chez ces derniers, créant un terrain favorable à la mise en place d'actions ambitieuses. La mise en intrigue au cœur des récits permet de partager un nouvel état de compréhension de la situation, qui repose sur la reconnaissance de la pluralité des fonctionnements techniques et des attachements associés, et qui contribue à améliorer la qualité des arènes délibératives autour des enjeux de gestion de l'eau.
